Chapter 13

DEERLIKE

“I guess we walk from here,” Theo said, pulling into the empty parking lot of Grossinger’s Golf Course. “Hopefully, the Smith’s hideout isn’t too far away.” Before he’d even shut off the engine, Selene had fled the car. In the rearview mirror, he saw her shake off the journey with all the vigor of a disgruntled hound, then reach into the trunk to retrieve her bow and wooden arrows, not bothering to hide them in her backpack.

Theo sat watching her for a moment, struck by her alienness. She’d seemed distant the whole car ride through the Catskills, even more than usual. Seeing her here, amid the rolling mountains, she seemed like an entirely different person from the one he knew. The wilderness was her realm, of course, but he’d only ever seen her in city parks. Is this a different Selene? he wondered. She has so many names, so many lives—how can I ever know them all?

He climbed out of the car and buttoned Paul’s drummer’s winter coat a little higher under his chin. Gray wool with a shearling lining, military epaulets, and pewter buttons down the sides—Les Misérables meets U2. He felt positively hip. Not to mention warm. Finally.

He laid a hand on Selene’s shoulder. She turned toward him, curious, and he quickly kissed her on the lips. She pulled back and stared at him for a moment, then kissed him back, harder. He no longer felt the cold.

“The resort was abandoned in the 1980s,” he said when they pulled apart. “And a lot of it’s falling down and dangerous. We might want to—”

She headed off confidently toward a cluster of buildings just visible through the woods.

“Okay, then.” Theo trotted gamely after her, trying to keep his balance on the icy ground.

Before them lay a narrow stream rushing silently beneath a layer of frozen crystal. Struck by the wild beauty of the place, Theo pulled out his phone for a photo.

Selene slammed her boot heel into the creek’s surface, cracking through the ice. She pulled the bandages from her forehead, revealing a thick red scab from the bullet’s graze. Theo watched silently as she knelt and cupped a hand into the current. She took a drink, then lifted the water to her forehead, dribbling it across the wound. A moment later, the scab fell into the stream and tumbled away. The skin beneath gleamed alabaster smooth. Theo knew that, as the Goddess of the Wild, she could gain strength from natural running water, but he’d never actually witnessed its healing powers before. It was fascinating and unsettling all at the same time.

Selene turned her face toward the skeletal trees around her. Suddenly, her mouth trembled into a smile. Theo followed her gaze.

A doe. Ears swiveled forward, neck sweeping gracefully skyward. Liquid eyes fixed on the Deerlike Goddess.

Theo swung his phone toward the animal, realizing he was already in video mode.

Very slowly, Selene got to her feet. For a heartbeat, Theo wondered if she’d unsling her bow. She was, after all, the Shooter of Stags as well as their protector. But she simply stood there, as motionless as the deer. Finally, the doe broke the connection, pawing at the snow to unearth a few blades of grass.

Selene murmured something under her breath, then turned and headed toward the cluster of buildings.

“What did you say to her?” Theo asked, surreptitiously switching off his phone with a guilty pang. It felt wrong to let twenty-first-century technology intrude on such a sacred moment.

Selene didn’t respond at first. When she did, it was with a quiet reverence. “I told her it was good to see her again.”

Only then did Theo realize what the encounter must have meant for Selene. As far as he knew, she hadn’t left Manhattan in years, maybe decades. Which meant the woman who’d once ridden a chariot drawn by stags, and who counted deer among the most sacred of her animals, hadn’t seen one in all that time. No wonder she didn’t want to shoot it.

As they crested a low rise, the main hotel appeared before them, a lumbering 1950s behemoth of boxy yellow concrete and graffiti-covered glass. Theo whistled softly. “Looks pretty deserted. What if the Smith’s not here?”

She pointed to the ground. “See?”

“I see ice and pine needles.”

“I see footprints. Big, crooked footprints, one deeper than the other, and the imprint of a crutch on either side.”

“You’re making that up,” he said, staring harder at the solid ice.

“Why would I?” she asked, genuinely bewildered.

“To show off.”

Without a word, she unslung her bow and sent an arrow flying into the gloaming. A distressed squeal emerged from beneath a snowbank. Selene retrieved her prey, holding aloft a dead rabbit by its long brown ears. “That’s showing off,” she said with a smile.

Theo grimaced. “When you didn’t shoot the deer, I thought you’d given up on the killing-innocent-animals thing.”

“Deer are sacred—I’d never hunt one without ceremony. But rabbits are vermin. Delicious vermin.” She slung the limp body from her belt. “The Smith will love it.”

“That’s the worst host gift I’ve ever heard of,” he grumbled, following her up to the main entrance of the hotel.

In the 1950s and ’60s, Grossinger’s had entertained up to 150,000 people a year as one of the premier resorts of the Borscht Belt, the string of Catskills destinations catering to Jewish families desperate to escape the steaming streets of New York but unwelcome in the swankier hotels of New England. Mothers would tote their Baby Boom’s worth of children, park themselves beside the swimming pool or shuffleboard court, and wait for their husbands to arrive on regular weekend visits. Dances, talent shows, comedy acts, buffets—a middle-class paradise. Then, with the rise of air travel and the decline of anti-Semitism, the resort’s devotees sought summer vacations farther afield, leaving Grossinger’s to die an inglorious death. Now the grand main lobby, a hangar-size expanse with a huge stone fireplace and a double-wide staircase, lay abandoned and decrepit. A sea of icy mold covered the carpet; midwinter darkness shrouded the ceiling high above.

This was not how Theo’d imagined his first out-of-town trip with Selene. He’d thought they’d jet off to Paris or Rome or even just Cape Cod. I was hoping the Catskills would’ve maintained at least a little of the Dirty Dancing vibe, he thought, stepping gingerly around a torn armchair covered in bird shit. He looked uneasily through the shattered windows at the low sun. “Once night falls, it’s going to be pitch black in here.”

“Don’t worry,” Selene said, striding forward. “I’ll have found Flint by then. Dash said once we got here, we should just ‘follow the signs.’ How hard can that be?”

“And then? What if the Smith really is the Pater? I can’t help remembering all those stories about his famous rage.”

“We all have stories about our famous rage. The Smith is the least of your problems.”

“He does have that hammer.”

“He’s also on crutches, remember? And he’s really quite reasonable. I wouldn’t worry about him.”

Theo didn’t push her further, but he mentally reviewed what he remembered about Hephaestus, God of the Forge. It wouldn’t hurt to be prepared. Stories of his birth varied, as did most myths, but the usual version held that his mother Hera, Queen of the Gods, became pregnant without the help of man’s seed. Probably a way to get back at Zeus, her famously philandering husband. When Hephaestus was born, Zeus—furious at his wife’s hubris—hurled him off Olympus. The fall left the Smith permanently crippled. Among a pantheon of stunning beauty, he was the only Olympian renowned for his ugliness. His bad luck didn’t end there. His marriage to Aphrodite, most gorgeous of goddesses, ended in heartbreak and betrayal when she left him for his brother Ares. Hence the rage.

“You know the story of Harmonia?” Theo asked Selene.

“Should I?” As with most of the lesser-known myths, if it had nothing to do with Artemis, Selene hadn’t retained the memory.

“Aphrodite and Ares have a daughter, Harmonia, and the Smith is so pissed off that he makes her a cursed necklace as a wedding present. She’s tortured by bad luck for the rest of her days. And not just her. Four generations of offspring. Does that sound reasonable to you?”

Selene stopped and turned around. “Are you scared to come?”

“What? No.”

“That story’s just a story. Or maybe it’s not. It’s not my myth, so I’m not sure either way. But you of all people should know that the gods aren’t always what the legends make us out to be. Harmonia’s descendants are long dead. The Smith is Flint now. He could be a completely different person.”

Theo raised a hand in submission. “Fine. I’m just trying to get my facts straight, that’s all.”

She snorted. “You shouldn’t come any farther.”

“What?”

“Flint spent most of his life holed up in a volcano. He’s always been antisocial and a little surly. That’s what I like about him. I’ve decided he’ll be easier to talk to if it’s just me.”

“You’ve decided. I see. And you couldn’t have thought of that before I left the warm, electrified, safe rental car and wandered onto the set of the zombie apocalypse?”

“I just think it’s better if I do this alone.”

“I’m not letting you risk your life—”

“Letting me? I’m telling you I can handle this. We’re just going to talk.”

“All the more reason I should be there. Your conversational sparring has a bad habit of turning into actual sparring very quickly.” She bristled, but he pressed on. “Look, I’m not trying to pretend like I know more about the gods than you do—”

“Good. Because you don’t. You may be a ‘Makarites’”—her voice dripped with disdain—“but you’re still just a mortal, Theo.”

He stopped in his tracks. “What’s that supposed to mean?” When she refused to even reply, he felt an unaccustomed anger flush his cheeks. “You sound like Orion. A mortal will never be able to understand your glory, so you should just go live happily ever after with some immortal lover. Is that it?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Then don’t talk down to me.”

Her eyes flared, but she stalked away without another word. Still, the message was clear: I’m a goddess. I talk down to you by definition.

Theo watched her go, fighting the urge to shout something cutting, and wondering when he’d become a guy who took cheap shots at his girlfriend. He tromped off toward the parking lot. Did he really want to wander Grossinger’s asbestos-filled halls, fighting off the ghosts of angry Jewish grandmothers swinging their beach bags at the goyish intruder, only to wind up facing the Sooty God swinging his massive hammer instead? Better to get back in the car, turn on the heat, and write some exam questions while waiting for his supernatural girlfriend to finish her little chat with her quasi-divine relative. Just the weekend in the country he’d been hoping for.

Pushing aside her frustration with Theo, Selene headed down a long, windowless passageway, determined to find her stepbrother. With no light to see by, she turned to her other senses. Smell was no good: The scent of mold and decay overpowered everything else. But she could feel an almost intangible wave of heat emanating from somewhere ahead of her. Surely that was one of the “signs” Dash had told her to follow.

She opened a door to an apartment; the dim sunlight leaking through its dirt-smeared windows provided just enough illumination for her night vision, so she could avoid the tumbled furniture and ripped-up carpet in the hallway. She followed the sensation of warmth down a series of long corridors, opening doors on either side for light.

She peeked into one of the rooms. Once, sunburned children would’ve crowded the Murphy beds, dreaming of swimming and hot dogs and endless summers. Now only rat-bitten mattresses remained beneath graffitied walls proclaiming, “Turn back now!” and “I fucked on this bed!” This was the place the Smith called home?

Finally, she found the source of the warmth: a large double door with “Natatorium” written in faded paint across the lintel. A swimming pool. A thick metal chain looped through the door handles: Someone didn’t want visitors. She tapped lightly on the door but got no response. She leaned her ear against the wood, hoping to pick up the slightest noise. Nothing. Impatient, she rattled the door and yanked on the chain, but to no avail.

She looked around for another way in and found a rusted sign reading, “Handicapped Entrance.” But the arrow on the sign pointed only to a bare wall. She scanned the hallway for any reference to her stepbrother’s attributes—hammer, tongs, donkey—but found nothing that might lead her to some secret way of unlocking the door.

“Hey!” she finally just shouted. “It’s the Huntress! Let me in!”

After a final loud pounding on the door, she turned and went back the way she’d come. A swimming pool would certainly have exterior windows; maybe she could see through from outside.

By the time she made it back outdoors, the sun had set. Only the moon illuminated the snow ahead of her. She traipsed around the building until she came to a large, intact structure with walls of paned glass: She could see the pool inside, but no sign of the Smith. Only the deep end still contained water—a black stagnant puddle filled with trash and the floating remains of metal chaise lounges, their legs jutting from the water like the skeletons of prehistoric sea creatures.

She turned to walk away, deciding she must have been mistaken. Then she noticed the lack of snow around the building: a wide bare ring surrounded by melting slush. The chill winter air blew away most of the heat, but when she pressed her hand against the glass wall, it felt warm. Hot even.

She scrounged in her jacket pocket for a scrap of paper and a pencil stub. Selene DiSilva, she wrote. Open up. Then she pulled a shoelace out of her boot and used it to tie the paper to the shaft of an arrow. She broke off the arrowhead—no use trying to gain the Smith’s trust if she wounded him in the process—then took a few steps back from the glass wall. She aimed high, toward the unlit starburst chandelier suspended above the pool.

Even without the tip, the force of her golden bow sent the arrow easily through the glass. She hadn’t quite planned on it shattering an entire large pane, but physics had never been her strong suit. She winced at the deafening clatter, hoping the Smith hadn’t booby-trapped the place. She stepped back, just in case.

As soon as the glass fell away, a bright orange glow burst from the hole in the wall, along with a massive cloud of white steam as superheated air met the winter’s chill. And the noise. A resounding thrumming of machinery, the clang of a hammer on an anvil, and underscoring it all, the indecipherable yowling of some heavy metal “singer.”

Before she could ponder her stepbrother’s musical tastes any further, an invisible door in the side of the wall swung open, and the Smith himself stood before her, looking as if he’d emerged from another dimension. Around the door frame, the image of the dark, abandoned pool remained intact, but over Flint’s shoulder she could see a brightly lit room full of machinery. He was shirtless, sweat pouring down his hairy barrel chest. Soot and grease streaked his craggy face. Rather than using his traditional crutches, he wore complicated titanium braces on each of his shriveled legs. In one hand, he held her arrow. In the other, the scrap of paper.

He clenched the note in his massive fist, crumpling it into a small ball, and squinted into the darkness.

“Huntress?” he asked, his voice a low, fierce rumble. Something in his tone made Selene pause. Maybe Theo was right. Maybe he is dangerous.

Cautiously, she stepped into the light.

Then, before she could stop him, he lunged forward, surprisingly fast on his withered legs, and grabbed her by the forearms. Despite his aging, his grip remained as hard as iron, and his eyes burned with a fiery intensity that raised the hair on the back of her neck. She reacted instantly, twisting her arms free and stepping backward to deliver a roundhouse kick to his sternum. The Smith stumbled, his braces squealing in protest. Then his legs crumpled beneath him, and he lay on the ice like a felled beast, his eyes on the ground, his back heaving.

“Why did you attack me?” she demanded, careful not to get too close.

“I didn’t … attack you,” he panted. Finally, he turned his face up to hers. The intensity was gone. Only a deep, weary sadness remained.

She finally understood: He’d been excited to see her. Not exactly the reaction of a man who’d sent someone to kill her.

He turned his face to the ground and started the laborious task of raising himself up. She started forward to help, then thought better of it. All gods, even those who had declined to the state of a thanatos, had their pride.

Once he was back on his feet, he pressed a few buttons on the side of his braces. They released a faint hydraulic hiss, and he could stand straight once more. His expression hardened into a stern mask. “I wasn’t expecting visitors,” he said. “I’m not usually so … demonstrative.” He rubbed at his chest, where the imprint of her boot sole branded his flesh.

“Here,” she said, pulling the rabbit from her belt and thrusting it at him with a belated attempt at courtesy. He accepted it slowly, his small eyes narrowing further.

“I guess you know it’s too hard to catch the buggers with my legs.” He gave her a thin, bitter smile, more accusation than gratitude, then turned back to the open door. “Come.”

Score another one for Theo, she decided. A terrible gift. Next time, just bring a box of chocolates. She hesitated in the doorway to the forge. The Smith might not be dangerous, but he was damn hard to predict, and the last thing she needed was another moody man in her life. Guess I don’t have a choice, she thought, following him inside with a sigh. If I want any more divine weapons, looks like I’ll have to put up with the man who made them all in the first place.